I have been a forum whore for a very long time, at least 10 years. Even though blogs came along, forum spam got so bad good boards just shut the doors to registration, shut down completely, or just let the spam roll in. I always stood fast in my position that forums were number one in the way content was displayed.

At one time back in the early 2000s I belonged to almost 300 forum boards and was active in almost every one of them. Since then allot of the sites are gone and people went in other directions. If it is any indication some of the big marketers have picked up frequenting forums again, and occasionally commenting on the value, just a small indication that something is working if they don't talk about it. They usually rave about something after they use it up.

5 reasons to use forums, and there are more.

Forum threads create real communication and conversation.

Forums seem to create more intimate relationships by getting to know people better.

Forums are much easier to find conversations that you are looking for.

Forums are a great way to find out about you and what you're interested in and your knowledge.

Posting and interacting on this board anyway since it is 100% spam free allows you to post in an environment that is 99% index in Google. Spam free boards are fantastic when it comes to keeping your site indexed, the bots on here are like flies many other clean boards are the same.

I came across a blog post by James Pruitt, he must have done a guest post (that is a whole article in itself for another time, not enough people do it) on Ana Hoffman's blog Traffic Generation Café. The title of the article is "How To Get Free Targeted Traffic To Your Blog Without Ripping Your Hair Out" I would highly recommend reading this and considering forums for a traffic source.People need to start thinking bigger when it comes to social traffic. FaceBook people for the most part have an email and think FaceBook is the internet. When they go off the FB site they have a fear of getting sucked into some vortex or something. For the most part they stay on FaceBook and read stupid shit and occasionally LIKE or comment if they are ambitious enough.

If you want real traction get involved and up to date with Google+ join some forums in your niche or a couple good general ones with a good variety of things being talked about. Social is the future and the future is here now.

If you haven't noticed this board has no open registration still. We do except members by request only, we're keeping it SPAM FREE. However there are plenty of places we have provided to post your links at will we do believe in self-promotion. Have a fantastic day!

Forums are DEAD

As you know Brad, I had one of those forums and I left exactly for that reason - spam. It was out of control. The Guild is one of the last forums I participate in. You guys do a great job in running a clean site and that's important.

Even some of the big forums with dozens of moderators keeping the spam down aren't worth our time. Without mentioning any names, many forums [Warrior Forum ] are nothing more than internet marketing whores pushing every piece of garbage they can muster.

It helps to have the registration here request only, Would it be nice to have more people interacting here.....yes!But it is totally fine there have been hundreds of people register here just to try and trash the place with spam. There is no reason for that there are plenty of places for self promotion here, more than most. Starting from the bottom up I will list 5 great reasons to be a member here.

There are 3 places to advertise your Business or Product

Next we have places to share and promote FREE stuff (Everyone loves Free stuff)

After the NO SPAM networking Information section

We have the Welcome section with the Blog Co-Op (Follow Link excerpt to individual blog post on your site)

We allow a great signature with links

We get some great traffic take a look at some numbers on the thread views.

Recently I have come across some very good helpful forum sites I think I will start listing some of them on the Free forum section.

Also thank you Brian for being a watch dog here and participating with great value in topics!